Cloud News

WATCH: Oracle Shows Off High- Performance Computing In The Cloud

Oracle has beefed up its cloud offerings with a focus on high-performance computing applications, leading to an expanded partnership with Troy, Mich.-based Software-as-a-Service company Altair Engineering.

Altair specializes in developing engineering products that apply advanced computational techniques to simulate physics. Its software is used to validate the designs of complex systems like cars, planes and heavy equipment. To deliver that resource-hungry software, Altair also has a division responsible for managing high-performance computing clusters that run highly parallel jobs like car crash simulations.

Recently, Altair and Oracle announced a joint solution that offers faster high-performance computing in the cloud. The solution leverages GPU technology to offer on-demand, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technology, accelerating external aerodynamics and other complex flow simulations.

“One of the use cases for the customers to use the Computational Fluid Dynamics appliances were to simulate the external aerodynamics for any of the industries. It could be the automotive industry, or it could be the aerospace industry. And, in order to simulate the external aerodynamics, you need a lot of graphics processing units. We are leveraging the high-end GPUs that are available on the Oracle Infrastructure with this solution,” explained Sam Mahalingam, Chief Technology Officer at Altair.

Traditionally, customers needed to buy hardware for GPU instances. The new solution eliminates that need, speeding up simulations from days to hours.

“That’s incredible change in terms of not waiting for the hardware to be delivered, which would typically take four to six weeks, and then configuring it and then getting access to the new product innovation. So we are increasing the pace of the innovation by providing the virtual appliance, where all you need is a browser to start innovating,” said Mahalingam. “I think that is the key.”

In October, Oracle became the first public cloud vendor to support GPU specialist Nvidia’s HGX-2 multi-precision computing platform. At Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle’s Senior Principal PM Manager, Karan Batta, showcased the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure platform and its newest feature, cluster networking.

Watch the video included in this article for that demo and more information.